The thing about soul – soul in the musical sense – is that you’ve either got it or you haven’t. You only have to listen for a moment to know that Jerry Butler, who died this week, had soul.

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Here is a sultry slice of funk, driven by a killer bassline, with the sweet sibling vocals of The Pointer Sisters from their third album Steppin’ back in 1975.

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The Jones Girls may have come from Detroit but their sweet harmonies made them synonymous with the Philly Sound. And their big breakthrough came after almost a decade when they teamed up with Philly Soul titans Gamble and Huff.

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I’ve never been a jazz-funk fan and the vibraphone would be very low on my list of favourite instruments, ranking alongside the flute and just above the ukelele. But I’d have to make an exception for Roy Ayers.

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William Bell was one of the architects of Stax/Volt soul. His debut single in 1961 helped define the classic country-soul sound of Memphis when he struck gold with his debut single.

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The Flirtations are one of those bands who left their native USA to find success in the UK… and then became even bigger back in America.

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Roberta Flack sang two or three of the greatest and most ubiquitous songs in what you might call the Easy Listening Soul genre. But there was much more to her than that. A fantastic afro, for one thing; and the middle name Cleopatra for another… and this tune.

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Here’s a ’60s band I’ve never heard of before, a female-fronted outfit with the disappointingly humdrum name of Smith, with their solitary hit single – a cover of Baby It’s You.

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Dobie Gray’s stomper Out On The Floor has been called the best Northern Soul record of all time, though I remember Dobie Gray for two other songs – Drift Away and The In-Crowd.

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This is the song that gave The Rolling Stones their first big US hit and helped make Irma Thomas the Soul Queen of New Orleans.

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